Exclusive: Police chiefs’ pay and perks may have been unlawful

The extra benefits range from tens of thousands in so-called retention payments and locally-agreed bonuses paid to individual officers to private health insurance provided to hundreds of chief officers and, in some cases, their families. Two forces have even paid for personal financial advice provided to their chief officers.

One of the largest pay deals whose legality is now under question was that provided to Sir Norman Bettison by the former West Yorkshire Police Authority which gave him a salary package running to more than £50,000 a year above the nationally set pay level.

Despite police pay being subject to tight national regulations set in 2003 – and governed by directions from the Home Secretary – the Home Office has not carried out checks on whether a raft of enhanced local deals had any legal authority to be made.

Instead, the Government has left it up to individual local police authorities – and from last November their successors, police and crime commissioners (PCCs) – to decide whether extra payments and benefits were lawful.

The potential lack of legal authority for a catalogue of pay and perks raises the prospect of PCCs making efforts to recover money from chief officers. The Home Office said such moves were a matter for individual PCCs where they believed payments had been made unlawfully.

North Yorkshire’s PCC, Julia Mulligan, told the Yorkshire Post a review was now under way, including consideration of whether money could be recovered.

Several other PCCs have begun reviewing whether payments were lawful. A spokesman for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said concerns around the payments would now be formally discussed when PCCs from across the country next meet on October 9.

Earlier this year, the Cleveland PCC launched legal action to recover hundreds of thousands of pounds paid to disgraced former chief constable Sean Price in annual retention and bonus payments. Mr Price, who was sacked for gross misconduct last October, received the payments under a local agreement which lawyers have now deemed had no legal basis.

It has emerged the legal move followed investigations by the local public spending watchdog, the district auditor, which found there was no legal authority for the payments to Mr Price and other chief officers in Cleveland or to former chief officers in North Yorkshire who had received tens of thousands of pounds in “personal development allowances” on top of their salaries.

After the legal action in Cleveland emerged, the Yorkshire Post asked police forces across England and Wales what payments they had made outside the set national framework over the last five years and most forces responded with examples of enhanced pay or perks.

Sir Norman was given a local package from joining West Yorkshire Police in 2007 which included an annual allowance of £34,000 to buy a car or cars for his personal use even though a chauffeur-driven car was already available for all his official duties as chief constable.

In South Yorkshire, former chief constable Med Hughes was given £30,000 in extra payments under what was described as an “enhanced remuneration package” which was set up on top of an existing nationally approved scheme which allowed for chief constables to receive a bonus of up to 15 per cent of their salary.

Regionally, Humberside was the only force to report no extra payments being made.

Further afield, chief officers in Norfolk and Essex received huge bonus and loyalty payments. Norfolk Police Authority described its payments, which totalled £450,000 over the last five years, as a “market supplement” designed to attract high quality chief officers to the force.

Former Essex chief constable Roger Baker received the highest individual enhanced payment when he was paid an extra £60,000 in bonuses despite leaving office only three months into the financial year in question.

The PCCs for both Norfolk and Essex are now reviewing the payments.

In many cases, police authorities sought and obtained advice from counsel supporting the payments’ legality but crucially very few, if any, appear to have sought approval from the Home Secretary.

Basic salaries for chief officers are based on a scale, depending on size of force, ratified by the Home Secretary. The Home Office confirmed extra payments or perks could not be paid unless they were covered by the Police Regulations 2003 or they 
were approved by the Home Secretary.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said: “We expect the highest standards of professionalism and integrity in all aspects of policing.

“Chief officers’ pay and allowances are set nationally, with only limited discretion 
for payments outside those 
rules. There is also a legal requirement for senior officers’ pay to be published under transparency rules and elected Police and Crime Commissioners will need to justify any payment made over and above these rules.”

Mark Kirkham, the district auditor for the former North Yorkshire and Cleveland Police Authorities, raised his findings with the national Audit Commission which has confirmed auditors across the country are being alerted to the concerns surrounding the legality of the payments.